Listening as Rhetorical Art: Hearing the silenced

Listening not only hears voice, but also captures silence. Alongside rhetorical silence’s marginalization, another overlooked site of rhetoric is listening. Krista Ratcliffe, a scholar on intersections of rhetoric, feminist theory, and critical race studies, defines rhetorical listening as “a trope for introspective invention and a code of cross-cultural conduct... which signifies a stance of openness that a person may choose to assume in relation to any person, text, or culture” (1). She leads her research on rhetorical listening with the following questions: Why is it so hard to listen to one another? Why is it so hard to identify with one another when we feel excluded? Why is it so hard to focus simultaneously on commonalities and differences? Why is it so hard to resist a guilt/blame logic when listening? How do power differentials of particular standpoints and cultural logics influence our ability to listen(3)?Although Ratcliffe acknowledges that there is no simple solution to these questions, she notes that each requires a space where listeners have a capacity and willingness to foster conscious identifications. Ratcliffe defines the four moves that comprise rhetorical listening:

(1) By promoting an understanding of self and other

(2) Proceeding within an accountability logic

(4) Locating identifications across commonalities and differences

(5) Analyzing claims as well as the cultural logics within which these claims function

Promoting an Understanding of Self and Other

How do we promote an understanding of self and others? According to Ratcliffe, the key element to center on is, in fact, understanding. Understanding encapsulates more than listening for a speaker’s, writer’s, or one's own readerly intent. Instead of listening for intent, understanding asks us to listen with intent. Ratcliffe extends understanding’s meaning to what she attributes to as standing under. She defines standing under discourses “means letting discourses wash over, through, and around us and then letting them lie there to inform our politics and ethics” (28). Thus, when we stand under our own discourses, we must identify the “various discourses embodied within each of us and then listen to hear and imagine how these discourses might affect not only ourselves but others” (28). By standing under discourses, we open the possibility for hearing what we cannot see, which does not guarantee mutual agreement (29). 

Proceeding within an Accountability Logic

Dominant in 21st-century media, the need to hold others responsible drives many social movements spreading across the airwaves. From #MeToo to the End Police Brutality movement, a call for accountability remains at the center of activists’ discourse. Ratcliffe suggests that rhetorical listening positions listeners' stances of openness within a logic of accountability. Counter to the culture of individualism in the U.S. she defines accountability in terms of unity, she says, “accountability means that we are indeed all members of the same village, and if for no other reason than that, all people necessarily have a stake in each other’s quality of life” (31). Thus, Ratcliffe further explains accountability logic as “an ethical imperative that, regardless of who is responsible for a current situation, asks us to recognize our privileges and non-privileges and then act accordingly (31-32).  In order to combat dysfunctional silences which permeate cross-cultural communication as forms of denial, defensiveness, and guilt/blame, rhetorical listening opens pathways to take responsibility for how we relate to differing positions. Those of us who take an active role in listening have responsibility for what we hear and how we process discourse in different contexts. 

Locating Identifications Across Commonalities and Differences

It is in our nature to gravitate toward commonalities between ourselves and others. Identifying common ground with other people, texts, and cultures lays the groundwork for a unified connection. When approaching cross-cultural conduct, Ratcliffe wants the practice of rhetorical listening to locate identifications in places of commonality AND differences. She notes a dangerous erasure that occurs when looking at differences during the process of identification, as people tend to only cling to commonalities. With a double focus in commonalities and difference in identification, discourses converge and diverge, revealing gray areas as key sites of analysis for rhetorical listening. Thus, opening pathways to compassion and empathy. 

Analyzing Claims as well as the Cultural Logics within which these Claims Function

When arguments ensue, we tend to focus largely on the claims made. Rarely are cultural logics taken into account to further understand how the claims function. Ratcliffe uses an example of one person claiming “I’m right that John Kerry should have been elected,” versus another person saying, “No, I’m right that George Bush should have been elected.” Each claim comes from a different cultural logic. The George Bush claim may function within a conservative religious logic or Republican logic. Thus, Ratcliffe states “by focusing on claims and cultural logics, listeners may still disagree with each other’s claims, but they may better appreciate that the other person is not simply wrong but rather functioning from within a different logic” (33). Ultimately, having an understanding of cultural logics allows for each other to respect the reasoning powers of others.